
i 






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Class E-2.Si>_ 

Book ^H"3i_ 






AN ORATION 



DELIVERED AT MARSHALL C. H., VIRGINIA 



ON THE 



Seventy-fourth Anniversary of American Independence, 



AT THE BEQUEST 0? 



V 

By J. O. McClellan, Esq. 



••!•«» 



PRINTED BY ORDER OF THE SOCIETY. 



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Grave Creek, July 12, 1850. 
J. G. McClellan, Esq., 

Dear Sir: — The undersigned, on behalf 
of the Marshall Lyceum respectfully request for publication, a 
copy of your truly able and interesting address, delivered on 
the 4th inst. 

Be pleased to receive from i'ue body we represent, and our- 
selves individually our warmest wishes for your future welfare 
and prosperity. Very respectfully 

your ob't servants 

VV. II. OLDHAM. ) 
ISAAC HOGE, \ Com't. 
G. W. BRUCE, ) 

Wheeling, July 15, 1850. 
Gent : 

I am in the receipt of your note of the — inst., re- 
questing for publication a copy of the address, which I had the 
honor to deliver on the late National Aniversary, at the request 
of the body which you represent. 

Although, too sensible of the demerits of the address, to deem 
it worthy of the honor you would confer, I do not feel myself at 
liberty, under the circumstances, to withhold it. 

For (he expression of personal esteem with which you are 
pleased to conclude, I am deeply grateful, and shall cherish it 
in lively remembrance, and cordially reciprocating it. 

I am, Gent., 
To W. H. Oldham, Esq. } with great respect 

I. Hoge, Esq. V Com, Your ob't servant 

Dr G. W. Bruce, ) J. G. McCLELLAN. 



ORATION. 

The voiceful moments of another Jubilee of Indepen- 
dence are around about us- They are here, with their 
deathless story. They are here, with memories consecrated 
alike to our national sympathies, and to the cause of Uni- 
versal Freedom. Consoling and inspiriting, they abide, 
wherever the free thoughts of the present are contending 
with the decaying powers of the past. 

Such is the beautiful feature of these, our Revolutionary 
commemorative symbols. 

The same all-seeing Sun, which hails the column on 
Bunker Hill, and cheers the hours of this Anniversary, 
has dawned upon Pyramids and towering shafts of olden 
renown, commemorating, indeed the grandeur of human 
conception, but commemorating, also, enormous wrongs 
upon mankind — the crimes of conquerors and of tyrants. 

How different the language of this Anniversary! It 
speaks of a deed, which in its ultimate effects, more than 
any other human transaction, stands connected with the 
highest temporal interests of the race. For, it commemo- 
rates the opening of a new era, in which,- the- powers and 
capacities, the rights and dignity of man were to be vindi- 
cated, under new auspices, and subjected to a new destiny. 
It signalizes the first successful step from the slavish dog- 
mas of the "divine" right of Kings and exclusive privi- 
leges, to the broad and catholic creed of popular sovereignty 
and equal rights. In the affirmance of these cardinal prin- 
ciples of human freedom, and their vindication in Revolu- 
tionary strife, the Declaration of American Independence 
hecame a new evangel in the rights of man, and this Anni- 
versary, a day of peculiar consecration in the calendar of 
human events. 

But it is in its National character that the day we 
celebrate has its most imposing claim on our veneration and 
regard. 



l! is in this connection, fellow-citizens, that wehavecome 
up to this commemorative scene. We have left behind us, 
our avocations — our strifes of sect and party. We are 
here, with a common gratitude for a common benefaction. 
We are amidst memories, which appeal to a common pride, 
and awaken a common enthusiasm. For, it is the story 
of our Independence which is here to-day, dropping from 
the historic hours. The scene of the great Declaration — 
the Senates and Armies of the Revolution — Washington 
tind his compatriots — they are all here, in the inspiring re- 
collections of this day. The distinguished Sages, whose 
deed we commemorate, have, indeed, been long gathered 
to their fathers. The storms of near a century have beat 
upon the deserted Halls of the Continental Congress, and 
the reapers of a hundred harvests have gathered their sheaves 
where shone the bivouac-fires of the Revolution. But the 
ascending voices of this day of Jubilee proclaim, that so 
much moral heroism has parted with none of its lustre, ox 
failed of none of its grateful inspiration. 

Time, indeed, has but consecrated the undying story of 
the Revolution. The pages of history, still glow, as warm- 
ly as ever, with the thrilling record. Ingenuous youth and 
patriotic manhood still linger, as proudly as ever, over 
that tale of high devotion and heroic sacrifice, where gene- 
rous enthusiasm may not linger, without an ennobling 
throb. We still catch the sublime fervor, which in the 
\isions of the orator, rings from the lips of John Adams, 
as he cries, "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, 
I am for the Declaration." We still hear, not unmoved, 
that language of more than Roman devotion, as from the 
ignominious scaffold, the dying Hale exclaims, 
'1 lament that 1 have but one life to lay down for my country.*' 
We feel that "These are deeds which should not pas 
away, and names that must not wither, though the earth 
forget her empires, with a just decay." 
For it is the record of 

"The high — the mountain majesty of worth," 
Which must endure, 

"And from its immortality look forth 

In the Sun's face." 
It has been ours, to have mingled with the last few and 
feeble survivors of that generation of men. We have seen 



5 



■J <v < 






them face to face. We have stood by tlieir tottering foi m? 
and listened, "with a never languishing ■ delighy' t<» the 
oft repeated tale' "We have had them with us in this our 
hours of Jubilee, and seen the filmed eye light, with a tran- 
sient fire, and ihe palsied limbs start with a momentary vigor 
•as they seemed to hear again the thundersof Monmouth 
and of Bennington. But we have witnessed, one afu»r 
another, their whitened heads go down. We have follow- 
•ed the "trailing banner and mournful music," wh.chhave 
accompanied them, one after another, to their rest, until 
the yielding marb.e must soon proclaim, "Here lie* t his 
last Soldier of the Revolution." 

Yet "their works do follow them." They follow them, 
in that scene, upon which, this days sunlight is streaming- 
all over their land, where from the masted harbors of the 
Atlantic, to the white tent of the emigrant in Oregon, the 
earth is rocking to the tread of a mighty civilization. 
They follow them, in that resistless spirit of civil and reli- 
gious enfranchisement, which, at this hour, is heaving the 
foundations of Old Empires. We are here, to day, fellow 
citizens, as republican freemen, rejoicing in that inherit- 
ance of Union and Liberty; tnat unutterable benefaction of 
private happiness, of public prosperity and renown, that 
are linked in with the achievements, whieh this day com- 
memorates. 

We are here, not as Roman or Grecian republicans, 
amidst priests with fillets and flowing robes, amidst altars 
and hill-crowned temples; our liberty enveloped in the 
splendors of a Pagan Mythology, or helmeted and fierce 
on the path of invading empire. Nor are we here, as the 
idealized exemplars of dreams of philosophy or the vagaries 
of cloistered learning. But we are here as American re- 
publicans; of this nineteenth century; illustrating in out- 
lives and characters, in our history and social progress, the 
practicaal and beneficent, but extraordinary results of sound 
and rational and christianized, free institutions. 

Ours is no history of patrician and plebian conflicts; of 
Carthaginian or Mithridatian wars; of the splendid pro- 
cessions of a Scipio, a Lucuilus. a Pompey or a Caesar, 
returning to republican honors, laden with the spoils of Ori- 
ental or Barbaric pomp. 

Ours is the simple,story of the triumphs of Liberty and 
Law, guided and sustained by an all-beneficent Union. It 



is the story of elevated, energized man, putting forth his 
powers, under new and strong impulses of hope and ambi- 
tion. It is the story of intellect awakened and encouraged; 
of physical energy, going forth under a new heaven and 
upon a new earth, and under the vigorous fostering of in- 
stitutions, that have broken down the ancient and arbi- 
trary barriers to the pursuit of human happiness. 

Surveying here, as from a point, the rise and progress 
of our Republicanism, and the magnificient compass of 
usefulness and benignity to which it is allied, the leading 
orison of this day is, of devout gratitude to Divine Provi- 
dence, for that happy conjunction of circumstances, in which 
its foundations were laid. 

It seems to have been reserved for this our land, to fur- 
nish, in the origin and development of its political institu- 
tions, the only propitious elements; the only abiding basis 
of republican energy and power. 

The futile attempts that have been made in modern times 
and under other skies, to establish republican institutions, 
have shown, that genuine and beneficent liberty has its or- 
igin, in other and profounder causes, than mere parchment 
constitutions and compacts, They have shown that mere 
paper proclamations of popular sovereignty and equal rights 
do not and cannot change, with the change of rule, the con- 
stitution and order of nature; do not and cannot dissipate 
the clouds of ignorance and error, which ages of menial 
darkness and moral obliquity have engendered, under bigo- 
try and oppression. 

Where are the Republics, which, animated by our ex- 
ample, have arisen to emulate our prosperity and feme? 

Where are the Republics whose revolutionary strife was 
enacted, amidst those strange scenes of tropical luxuriance 
and sublimity, that are filled with the story of a departed 
empire of gorgeous Indian civilization? The South Amer- 
ican and Central American and Mexican republics — where 
and what are they? 

Let a melancholy sequel of vicious and aspiring ambi- 
tion arousing blind hates — let the story of civil dissensions 
and strife, of dark anarchy and revolution and military 
Dictatorship — let the scene of a clime, where squalid 
husbandry ekes out from its fields a precarious subsistence 
(and lawless banditti roam the mountains — give answer. 

And France — revolutionary France, around whose sec- 



ond coming to the fraternity of the free, there linger the 
beautiful aspirations of her. Lamartine and Hugo — what 
is she? Where in all the land of wild and brilliant story, 
of genius and of valor, — where, in man or his works, ar^ 
the elements that can permanently secure to the rightful, 
wise and enlightened guidance of the people, that favored 
inheritance of the Bourbons? No reign of terror, indeed, 
has again awakened the indignation of the civilized work! 
NoDantons or Robespierres have again arisen to show how 
nearly man may emulate, and play trie demon. But surely 
in the fierce masses of her great capitals, with their terri- 
ble inheritance of Atheism and crime; in the wide spread 
social evils eating at the very heart of her society; in the 
rank and rising harvest of civil discord, sown by dreaming 
theorists and enthusiasts;who does not perceive that anoth- 
er probation must elapse, before Gallic freedom can arts, 
regenerate, and rational, and christianized? 

Ours fellow citizens, was a different baptism. The con- 
ditions of vigorous, republicanism were here, before the 
note of revolution was sounded. They were here, in the 
race; in the general inheritance of virtuous religious cul- 
ture; in the general prevalence of representative institution? 
and civil liberty; in the absence of a past full of time; hal- 
lowed social distinctions; in the freedom from crowded 
and licentious cities; in the independent and vigorous spirit 
awakened and fostered by that exciting contact with the 
scenes and struggles of a new world, which evoked all the 
energies of self-reliant manhood. 

The elements of popular institutions had indeed been en- 
gendering from the begining; from the earliest colonial era, 
A waste of waters rolled between the Colonists, and the 
world of Feudalism, they had left behind. But, from i • 
political organism, they had extracted the popular elem 
and incorporated them in the basis of colonial organization 
Elective representation became a prominent feature of their 
political institutions,untrameled by the overpowering force s 
of Feudal enactment. The Colonists hini igiit v-'^h th orn 
their social organization, by influences tending to a 
development oi the character afterwards impressed upon 
our popular institutions. An unappropriated continent of 
free-holds lay before them, from which each sturdy arm 
could earn independent equality, with which orders and 
degrees, founded on great landed mon->polies,could have no 









10 

a ffiriity. No feudal castles lifted ther battlemented towers 
a bove them, to perpetuate by their prescriptive antiquity, the 
factitious claims of birth, or the rights of caste. No rep- 
resentatives ot a thousand inheritors ofBaronial privleges, 
or ancestral renown, were here entrenched, in the stately 
halls and manorial grandeur of a bye-gone age. The gen- 
eral distribution of landed property among a people opposes 
one of the most formidable barriers to the encroachment 
of power, and forms one of the most reliable promoters, as 
well as strong defences of popular institutions. 

But the founders of the Western Empire were also the 
descendants of a proud and spirited race, jealous of their 
liberties, and who had borne them up, with a high hand, 
when Feudalism in a general wave, whelmed the popular 
immunities of Europe. The Northern Colonists, in par- 
ticular, were, in their prejudices and exiled character, fitted 
to become the progenitors of a new order of institutions. 
They were of that extraordinary generation, to whom re- 
luctant England now attributes the salvation of her liberties 
when in the fullness of their time, they struck down the 
traitorous Charles from the throne of his fathers,and slaugh- 
tered his battalions at Marston Moor. It was not for the 
wealth of mines or the spoils of conquest, that Carver and 
Bradford, and Winslow braved the terrors of the untrodden 
wilderness. They came not like the degenerate Spaniard, 
to coin from the blood of Incas the unhallowed wages of 
the conquerrer. Their object was as immeasurably higher 
than this, as their rewards have transcended the ephemeral 
glory of the invader. Persecuted and assailed, they had 
come for conscience sake. Under an establishment, which 
at that time, brooked no dissent from its dogmas, and asser- 
ted with a cruel rigor the lofty pretensions of Church and 
State, their plea for toleration could only be made, upon 
the fundamental principles of natural right. "Their very 
existence' cried Edmund Burke, 'dependsupon the powerful 
and unremitting assertion of this claim." What progenitors 
these of men, who afterwards withstood the most potent 
empire of the world, in battle — for a principle ! Here was 
the most daring resistance to colonial subjection, and here, 
the memorable opening scene of Revolution was laid. 

Our colonial ancestors had brought with them all the 
civil liberties and personal rights of the Englishman; the 
trial by jury, the Habeas CoRPus,and the Common Law, 
with its vigorous conservation of life and property. 



11 

But, without the virtuous and enlightening influence of 
religious and educational culture, popular institutions must 
rest upon foundations, full of insecurity and danger. It 
was the peculiar fortune of our institutions to have risen 
amidst general public virtue and enlightenment. This was 
the noblest inheritance of the Revolutionary age^ Who, 
reverting to the extraordinary scenes of that day, can fail 
to mark the effect of these latter influences upon the events 
that then and thereafter transpired. Look upon the Sen- 
ates. They are no assemblies of corrupted demagogues 
nor of wild and visionary enthusiasts. Men of no ordi 
nary intellectual and moral stature are there. Look upon 
their features — calm, thoughtful, earnest, and reliant. Lis 
ten to theircounsels — firm, wise and practical. Hear then- 
great declaration, appealing to the God of battles ! Go to 
the armies — leaders, rank and lite. They are no bruta", 
hireling, licentious soldiery. They have left the homes 
and toils of intelligent industry, not for the rapine of lust- 
ful war, but to fight the righteous battles of liberty. Be- 
hold thetrving scenes — the wintry horrors of Valley Forge, 
anu inai uay ol siiuiime uevouon, wlien, with an indebted 
country at their feet, they laid down their victorious arms, 
and returned to the blackened ashes of their homes, desti- 
tute and penniless, but still covered with glory ! 

I stay not here, fellow citizens, to speak of those popu 
lar assemblies, frequent, and convened on sudden emeigen 
cies, by means of which, the people had long accustomed 
themselves to the exercise of power. 

It was amidst the ripened growth of such influences as 
these, that the days of the Revolution dawned upon forums, 
and presses and political assemblies, ringing with the free 
thoughts of an Otis, a Hancock, an Adams, a Franklin, a 
Jefferson, a Henry — upon three millions of spirited, but 
calm and determined people. It was amidst [elements so 
propitious to their genius and character, that the political 
structures of our republicanism arose. 

But it was not enough, that the foundations were pre- 
pared — that a steady, virtuous and enlightened people were 
ready to assume the high responsibilities of self-govern- 
ment. Institutions were to he erected — which, looking to 
the past and to the future, av ding the cardinal errors or 
the fallen freedom of other times, and which, regarding 
the inevitable weaknesses of human nature, should achieve 



forever, a beneficial and wise career. To the wisdom and 
sagacity, which came forth and performed their great work 
at that precise juncture not only in. American history, but 
in the cause of man, I shall not presume to pay my feeble 
tribute of admiration while I hear,, echoing through the 
arches of the temple of this our constitutional liberty, the 
lofty ascriptions of gifted genius,, to the memory of the 
great builders. 

Nor shall I pause to trace the legitimate consequences of 
the constitutional freedom, then framed and adjusted, upon 
the character and developement of succeeding times. — 
Who, indeed, may here apply the line and plummet? 
Who shall say, how far, and to what extent, our remarka- 
ble governmental divisions of power, moving in beautiful 
harmony within their respective orbits, have contributed to 
the general weal? Who shall trace the momentous eon- 
sequences of our noble constitutional provisions for equal 
rights, upon the general social developement of the people? 
Who shall say how much of character has been made no- 
bler and better; how much of the man has been drawn out 
ana uignmca, oy mat unseen, cue poieiii power or pucne 
will, which, through the laws, is around us and with us, in 
our fields and workshops and toils, and about our choicest 
ntfections, with its strong security for private rights, and 
personal liberties — with its amazing incentives for every 
f xertion of the capacities of the people? Who shall de- 
clare what has been the legitimate effect of that power, 
which, without swords or bayonets, has stood for near a 
century around religion, protecting the tender conscience 
from the stripes of bigotry;:which has held sleepless watch, 
in these our halls of justice,, sinking from her scales, the 
privileges of birth and caste; which ever bids the honest 
lip to speak its will, free, as the unfettered airs of heaven? 
Who may follow and mark, upon every line of our coun- 
try's history and progress, the effects of that call, which is 
ever sounding from the open portals of the public forums,, 
bidding up to usefulness and fame, every patriotic and 
noble spirit, from every rank and condition in life? Who 
shall declare how many good and honorable, and far-reach- 
ing achievements, and measures of public utility and re- 
nown, have thus been secured in all the incalculable mea- 
sure of their influence? Who, in fine, fellow citizens, 
may weigh, as in an. exchequer balance, the benignant re~ 



13 

suits of that peaceful political union, which has surroun- 
ded all the mighty interests of society, with the unity and 
projection of a powerful nationality? 

But it was not less the peculiar lot of our infant repub- 
licanism, to have fallen to the guidance of that exalted 
patriotism and virtue, relict of revolutionary trial, and 
which in the providence of heaven, lingered long to mould 
and guide its trust, ere it ascended, amidst the expanding 
benignance it had engendered. Honor, honor, this day, 
to the early statesmen of the republic, whose lofty policy, 
founded in the eternal dictates of justice and right, has con- 
tributed so powerfully to the national security and fame, 
and which still moves as a luminous pillar, in the van of 
our pathway. 

Such, fellow citizens, was the propitious opening of this 
our republicanism. How comprehensive the results which 
have followed, beyond the vision of John Adams, when 
he exclaimed, " Where will the consequences of the 
American Eevolution end?" Behold our annals. They 
are replete with proud recollections of men, and their 
achievements in every path of fame. Behold our vigor- 
ous and imposing present, open, visible, palpable to every 
eye and sense. Behold our great interests, spreading, 
diffusing, animating our vast confederacy, our religion and 
letters and science, our inventive genius in the arts, — our 
commerce competing with veteran empires in the uttermost 
parts of the earth; our agriculture, our manufactures, our 
great industrial energies, all, all sweeping beyond the far 
prairies. It is but as yesteday, that the primeval forests 
were upon these plains, and the strange melodies of barba- 
rian incantation went up among these hills. The genius 
of civilization has come to us from her ancient seats. In 
the scope, and under the stimulus of our free institutions, 
her path has been onward. Her voice is already calling to 
us, from the far shores of the Pacific, and from its golden 
sands the last burnished pillars of her western empire flash 
in the descending sun ! 

But our name has gone out among the nations. From 
the days of the revolution, down to the momentous present, 
this our republicanism has filled a large space, in the eyes 
of mankind. From amidst the castellated, armed and op- 
pressive Feudalism of Europe, men have looked out upon 
our ascending path. They have witnessed no career [of 



14 

fiery propagandism. They have seen no armies or navies 
rushing forth, under the national sanction and in the name 
of liberty, to desolate and ravage the earth. 

But they have seen the suns of near a century going 
down over this great Western Commonwealth of citizens 
pursuing, without arbitrary orders and degrees without 
standing armies, and yet without civil tumult and commo 
tion, a peaceful, manly energetic progress to prosperity and 
renown. And what have been the results? Blot out, fel 
low citizens, blot out, this day, the past history of this 
republic; sink it out of all legitimate connection with the 
annals of mankind, and where.would have been the cause 
of popular rights in Europe and elsewhere, now? Where 
would have been those constitutional guarantees to popular 
freedom, which mark its vigorous advance in the climes of 
old Feudalism? 

Standing, then, to-day, with our republicanism, auspi 
cious in its origin and character, with the unmistakable 
evidences of its bountiful influence, lifting themselves up 
clearly defined to our reason and sense; with the resistless 
conviction, also, bred of our inmost nearts, tnat yet more 
auspicious results await, and must surround the future pro- 
gress of this people, if we are true to ourselves and to our 
relations to our institutions, what incentives are (urging 
us, at this hour, to surround this our trust, with all the 
elements of security and perpetuity, which gratitude or 
reverence can bring from the past, or duty and responsibil 
ity can draw from the present, and to bear it on, as an ark 
freighted with incalculable treasure ! 

When we look around upon our great inheritance, and 
behold the conflict, which is ever waging within it be- 
tween influences, on the one hand conservative, and on 
the other subversive of it ; when we reflect, that Reason 
must ever have here the highest incentive, for lofty, noble, 
patriotic action, and passioji the broadest scope, for the 
play of its ignoble and corrupt desires, we are reverted to 
the tenure, the only tenure by which that inheritance may 
De maintained, in its purity, its usefulness and its vigor. — 
That tenure let us write, this day, upon our hearts. Let 
us catch its sentiment in its fulness, and take it home with 
us, teaching it, proclaiming it, voicing it forth, in the march 
of our daily lives. That tenure, be it forever spoken, is an 
enlightened, virtuous patriotic, public will. 



Viewing our institutions and their position in whatso- 
ever light we may; viewing them, as surrounded, with aiy 
or all other elements of stability, arising l'rom whatever 
source, whether from their admirable adjustment of oppo- 
sing forces, and their capability of expansion to the spirit 
and wants of the age|; or from the deep seated conscious- 
ness of their blessings ; the general reverence and attach- 
ment; or finally, from the powerful and quickening agen- 
cies and forces of these days of progress; holding even, 
that popular institutions, to some degree, are here, an inev- 
itable necessity for many generations; the last analysis, to 
which we come, is, that this our republicanism is hased 
upon tht presumed capacity of the people for self gov- 
ernment. 

But, what a momentous conclusion is this! It argues 
an ever present sense of the rights duties and relations, 
subsisting between citizen and citizen. It argues correct 
conceptions always, of the nature, limitations, and objects 
of government. It argues sound, virtuous principles ever 
fresh, ever vigorous, ever coming up, to stay and beat back, 
the heavy pressing forces of deception and corruption. 

It has been our fortune, hitherto to have had intelligence 
enough, and virtue enough in the land, to animate our 
beautiful system of free government, with a healthy con- 
servatism, which has withstood the severest shocks. 
Amidst all the party rancor and fanaticism which have 
raged around them, an enlightened sense of duty and res* 
ponsibility has stood up and vindicated itself, patriotically 
and firmly. And it is a cheering attestation of this Amer- 
ican intelligence, and law and order abiding sentiment, 
that, beyond the deserts and mountain ranges of the West, 
there are^ at this hour, by the sands of the Pacific, peace- 
ful, orderly well sustained civil governments, upheld by 
no files of soldiery, by no lines of battleships; but resting 
on the American basis, holding the American allegiance 
and extending the American power and fame. 

It behooves then every man, bearing the American stamp 
and superscription, to enlist his best energies in fostering 
upon all occasions, and at all times, an intelligent high 
toned public sentiment ; to use the reason his God has 
given him, and the scope his institutions afford him, to 
cherish and build it up. It behooves him to encourage 
the spread of religon and morals and knowledge, so that 



16 

.the relations, duties, rights and responsibilities of the re- 
publican citizen may be broadly appreciated and manfully 
asserted ; that an ever abiding forbearance, magnanimity 
and sense of justice may prevail, tempering the strifes of 
party, disarming fanaticism of its strength and terror, hol- 
ding up and keeping up, at all times, the great and common 
and undisputed interests of the country. 

All things proclaim the utilitarian, practical industrial 
age. Wherever the stagnancy of mind has been broken, 
mankind have been thronging up to the fields of industry 
and labor, which ceaseless discovery and research are con- 
tinuously laying open. Under these, our propitious skies, 
rewarded industrial interests have become the predominant 
social force. Liberty, with us, has, indeed, as anciently, 
awakened the man. But the spirit developed, has gone to 
its labors, in another sphere, than that of idealized beauty 
in Architecture, Sculpture, lofty Letters, or of ceaseless 
emulation in the Arts and Sciences, and splendid Military 
exploits. The cultivation of the Arts and Sciences, among 
ns, has taken a direction bearing upon this predominant 
utilitarian, practical industrial spirit of our people. No 
Simian Appollos, of faultless mould and imperial mien, 
rise, in dazzling marble, from our ocean crags. No ma- 
jestic Parthenons here attest the exquisite, the almost di- 
vine, sense of beauty, to which genius of a free nation may 
be attuned, under the poetic inspirations of Mythology. — 
But the path of the Iron Horse through our mountains, and 
over our streams;our populous waterfalls;our cities resound- 
ing with the clatter, and veiled in the smoke of great facto- 
ries — our boundless area of busy husbandry — our great 
host of keen-eyed commerce, which no man may number 
— all proclaim the predominating practical, industrial ge- 
nius ofour nation. 

But if revived industry is among us, with all the power 
and forces of the age, it is here also, with its great ques- 
tions — questions of the rights of labor and capital — ques- 
tions of fundamental reform, and sounding through the 
whole social organization. Hosts of demagogues, fanatics 
and deceivers, in the press and out of it, stand ready to fo- 
ment and fatten upon the prejndices and passions of this 
ruling element in our body politic. Here, then, is a de- 
mand for calm, patriotic, conservative sentiment, allied 
neither to undue reverence nor radicalism, out alive always 



17 

to genutne abuse, and cutting it down, and thus forever 
stripping the madness, and folly* of ultraism of the only 
guise, in which it becomes dangerous. 

But we stand iu an extraordinary political attitude to the 
world. Amidst the convulsions of the nations, we hare 
played no part, save that of silent, all powerful example. 
We have acted upon principle, from the beginning. We 
are no propagandists through the torches of insurrection, 
or the thunders of the battle-field. We have indeed, sent 
forth our emissaries of propagandism. But, they have 
been the white-winged fleets of commerce proclaiming 
through all the earth, that the commercial empire of Free- 
dom lies not entombed, with the once proud Queen of the 
Adriatic, nor its energies with her merchant princes. Let 
it not be said of us, "hitherto you have been weak, now 
you are powerful and great, and will be tempted to play 
the part/ w'.iich you dared not venture before." Let the 
' councils of the past prevail, with increased force. Let 
public seat iment be wrought to a religious abhorrance of 
every sr.d of all schemes of military propagandism and 
conque£t. It is, indeed, noble, to mingle our tears with 
those of weeping exiles from ruthless despotism. It is no- 
ble, to exult as the heroic Kossuth strikes for indepen- 
dence, a nd rises to a kindred with our Washington. It is 
noble iu rouse, and concentrate the just scorn of civilized 
man upon the brutal deeds, which have disgraced the vic- 
torious Austrian. But ours is a higher mission than that 
of the sword, whether it be upon the path of the propagan- 
dist, or the conquerer. 

Already our Southern watch-towers look out upon the 
bland skies and effeminate races of the upper tropics. — 
There are not wanting in the land, spirits reckless enough 
to tarnish the unsullied stars and stripes, with the leprosy 
of conquest. But let every man who values a republican 
inheritance for his children, teach both them and himself, 
to turn forever with loathing, from the serpent whispers of 
the spirit of conquest. For be it never forgotten, while 
the hoar Coliseum has a voice, or fallen Iberia a story, that 
the spoils of this lust have been, as the apples of Sodom, 
10 the nations that have eaten. 

Finally, fellow citizens, our present relations to each 
other, as Americans, amidst the angry debates, which dis- 
turb our national councils, and the sectional distrust which 



threatens, and mars our peace, demand of us, to aid in dis- 
seminating such a wisp, patriotic public sentiment as will 
rise above the strifes of section, into the imposing sense 
of the unspeakable value of theUnion. 

Of the value of that Union, guided and animated, by an 
intelligent sense among the people of its guarantees and 
their obligations, who may adequately speak? Who, stan- 
ding here, with its beneficent results flowing in his life and 
character, and tilling all the measure of his best recollec- 
tions, will venture to declare the depth of its soundings ? — 
Who, looking back to the establishment of this Constitu- 
tional Union, will declare, where otherwise would have 
been these our liberties, these our enjoyments, these our 
precious inheritances of security and freedom, wide as the 
wide realm of our common country? 

These our lakes and rivers have floated no armed and 
pennoned barges of hostile States or Confederacies. From 
their shores, have frowned no opposing cannon, nor morn- 
ing reveille nor sentinel's cry, have betokened the watchful 
vigilance of jealous thick-clustering nationalities. But, 
peacefully, quietly, one after another — star after star — have 
State after state come in, to no galling yoke, to no debas- 
ing servitude ; but, to an honorable, harmonious, common 
iiationality, each moving separate and free, yet united, 
"Distinct as the billows, but one as the Sea." 

We are here as Americans. We know no other histo- 
ry. Our story is a unit. There is no gap. From 
childhood to manhood, we have known no other language. 
In all we possess of historic recollections, in all we feel of 
patriotic tervor, we are Americans, and Americans only, 
in all we are or have been, we are bound up in a common 
nationality. We look back to all our distinguished men 
in every path of renown — to all the illustrious deeds and 
and honorable achievements that illustrate the pages of our 
country's history, as belonging to us — as related to us, in 
no other sense than as Americans. 

We have looked within no local limits, when our hearts 
of youth or of manhood thrilled as we heard a Decatnr, a 
Bainbridge or a Perry, shouting in the victories of Erie or 
of old Ocean. We feel no other than a broad nationality, 
glow within us, as we follow the gallant [Scott up the 
heights of Queenstown, or rehearse the story of the Rio 
Grande and the march to Mexico. There is no commu- 



19 

nion with sectional pride, as we con the roll of our civic 
fame — its names of renown, in every walk of genius and 
of art. 

It is not'Beotia speaking to Sparta, nor Athens to Beo- 
tia, Behold an Epaminondas ! Behold an Aristides! B t 
in the height and depth, in the entire magnitude of the glo- 
ry of these deeds and names, the same star-spangled banner 
covers them all ! What voices, then, from all we feel or 
know, from the past,the present and the future, are calling 
upon us, this day, to take upon ourselves, anew the vows 
of Union! Nature, indeed has made this, our inheritance, 
"A union of lakes, a union of lands." 

But be it ours — be it ours to make it, 

"A union of Hearts — a union of hands." 

Let us foster the charities of a common brotherhood. 
Let the cherished sentiment of Union, mingle and glow in 
all our teachings. Let childhood, with kindling eye, hear 
of it from parental lips. Let hoary age whitening under 
its benignity, forget it not, in his venerated councils. 

F'cllav; citizen?: !? v l^e hanks of our beautiful Potomac 
lies inurned the dust of him, whose farewell words, are in 
our memories, deprecating the strifes of section, and invo- 
king forever the spirit of Union. Washington speaks 
i'rom his tomb ! 

On the site of the Capital, which bears that illustiious 
name, American gratitude, is now erecting an ennobling 
testimonial of patriotic recollections. 

The lofty entablature, which is to bear to comingtime, 
the veneration of this age of Americans, for the virtues and 
character of Washington is ascending. With a propriety 
as beautiful, as it is honorable, the States are contributing 
their marble offerings to grace and support the shaft com- 
memorative of him who was the common benefactor. 

Let us imitate this example. Let us put the pledges of 
our hearts into the cause of this bountiful Union. — 
Let us build it up upon their imperishable basis. Let us 
cement it with our choicest affections, and crown it with 
our highest aspirations. So shall it endure, with an ev- 
er enlarging circle of benefaction, when decay shall have 
fixed upon the monument, and its marble is crumbling into 
dust. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




